


If I Could Only Coax You Overboard

by swords (zombiejosette)



Category: Dark Shadows (2012), Dark Shadows - All Media Types
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:01:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiejosette/pseuds/swords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This, she will write: <i>Roger hasn't been breathing since Laura fell overboard</i>, in a messy scrawl when her notepad is soaked with liquor and later, when the ink has spread across the page, wonder her point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Could Only Coax You Overboard

She wears her hair to her shoulders in June, 1969, pulled back at her temples, a smooth path of carrot red across her crown. Tight. Too much so. Strands pull themselves from the roots with the removal of the pins each night. It's practical, she tells herself. Easy. Allows her face to be seen, eyes over the rim of her glasses as she peers at David. Several sessions a day. Never late. Like clockwork.

She's allowed to be alone with him now. In the dining room, always, for in the drawing room he ceaselessly talks of the cliffs and the waves, and in Julia's office, how they are below those very same cliffs and waves. Like his mother. David talks about her in present tense (she says this, I see her) as though she's still there, and Julia has a picture of her now, plastered into her mind: long, dark hair, a white dress and a smile like the sun. Warm. Bright.

It's Roger who recounts the memories, describes her, tales of when she was Laura Murdoch and how she swept through Collinsport _like a wildfire_. She has the very quote scrawled in the margins of her notebook, smeared with red ink, and when she connects it with David's insistence that she'll be back - that she's still here, then her heart will stop - and it's then her mind will spark, it's then that her defeat will dissipate, then that she'll primly say to Elizabeth that David has made no progress in June of 1969, then that she will be more than happy to accept more time with him, but _oh how it will pain her to ask_ and she will try to still the blaze in her eyes.

Julia's hair is past her shoulders in August of 1969. She does not pin it back and it falls into her face as she makes no secret of recording Roger's thoughts, mannerisms. The way his wrist shakes under the weight of keeping his hand still. Restrained. She notes it. The amber liquid in Roger's glass sways like the tide, over the side, and Julia's watch it slip down, down, over the stem until it's a dark drop on the white tile of her floor.

She sighs, breath heavy in her chest.

"Mister Collins," Julia begins, tentatively leafing through her notepad, "you do know this would be more effective if you actually remembered talking to me in the morning?"

Roger says nothing, rolls his eyes, downs the rest of his drink. He reaches for the bottle, and Julia grabs it by the neck to drag it out of his reach. 

She raises her chin. His arm goes limp. He scowls.

"My money bought that."

"My _paycheck_ bought that," she replies snidely, tilting her head to the side toward the half-empty bottle. "From your _sister's_ money."

Roger says nothing, letting the dregs in his glass mingle with the half-melted ice cubes in the bottom. He swirls it and they all clink together before he brings it to his mouth; she averts her eyes as he takes a piece of ice in, throat suddenly thick.

Roger says, "Still my house," and it's not, it's Elizabeth's (but written into the will that Roger shall always have a home and Elizabeth Collins Stoddard will not turn away a Collins regardless, certainly not David Collins when he's two, straight from Augusta with a mop of dark hair and big eyes, not when Carolyn is nine and fast asleep and they've thirty-six spare rooms), but Julia doesn't argue, only heaves another sigh and removes her glasses - slowly, lest they catch on her unruly red curls. 

"Doesn't mean you're paying me for this," Julia answers, finally, clipped. It's not yet midnight but the house is quiet. The conversation echoes off of the walls of the makeshift apartment she has below the rest of the house. Echo and ricochet and sink in the cracks and stay there, kept safe with the secrets and the thoughts that Julia does not voice. Roger reclines on her couch, and when he laughs, it's raspy. Jagged.

( _That's where she is. Those sharp rocks by the cliffs. Under Widows' Hill? Ripped up if she didn't drown. You know, we've got some legend about widows killing themselves that way, some load of bullshit. Widows. I just didn't think -_ )

"I'm serious. When doctors give treatment, they do like to be paid."

He doesn't respond.

"Really, Mister Collins, a couple of chats is one thing, but I'm here to care for your son. Your son, not -"

Roger sits upright, so suddenly that Julia jolts. He swings his legs and they hit the floor and for a moment, she feels the breathlessness of her heart stopping again - a fear he'll leave, that he'll walk up those stairs and never return, never again to bore and fascinate and entrance Julia all at once with tales and spun, rose-tinted memories of Laura Murdoch Collins and her dark hair and flickering smile.

Because Julia Hoffman is not afraid of being singular, a woman with a bottle floating, seemingly, in the middle of the ocean.

"You ever miss anybody?"

His hand is clenching the glass too tightly. His knuckles are a ghostly white, and Julia digs the tip of her pen into her notepad, indentation in paper visible, to keep herself from scrawling it.

"What?" she blurts.

"Come on," he says, and she hears the haughtiness forced through his voice like an afterthought. Too much bravado. "All the way here from New York? Gotta be someone that heart of yours yearns for."

And he winks at her. One eye flicking shut for a split second and no, no, it's all wrong; there's no money in it but there's Laura and whether she's dead or alive and there's David and notoriety and Julia Hoffman's past does not matter.

"I moved out a long time ago," she says, with finality. Too much. Too firm. Too long of a hesitation beforehand.

"Mom. Dad. Sister. Boyfriend." Roger rattles the titles off one after the other, glass shaking, ice clinking. "Grandparents. Former patients."

"I can't talk about them." And it's true. She can't. There is no comment for the others.

"Brother. _Fiance_ -"

"Mister Collins -"

"Shit, Julia, give me something."

There's a chill at the familiarity.

She says, "I am. I'm giving you everything but a prescription."

Roger's eyes train on the bottle on Julia's table until Julia grabs it, places it on the floor next to her chair.

He swallows hard. Her eyes do not linger on his Adam's apple, the stubble on his neck.

"What does David say about her? About Laura."

Laura's name rolls off of his tongue melodically, two syllables flowing into one another, led by the tongue to his teeth and the rest tumbling after. She flips the pages of her notepad and shrugs.

"I've given you my reports," she says. "You and Elizabeth both know. He isn't handling it well. He won't accept it."

"Still says he sees her."

A hesitation. "That's part of it, yes. That's always been a part of it."

This time, Roger's shoulders twitch with the force of keeping his body still. His jaw is slack while his mouth is closed, eyes darker. Julia clutches her notepad.

"I don't."

"Sorry?" Julia blinks.

"I don't see her," Roger says. His voice is louder - something in his throat, drowning his thoughts before they reach the open air. "I don't see her, I don't hear her, I don't feel her. Goddammit, Julia, you ever _miss anybody?_ Ever know what it's like? Ice cold bedroom, after -"

He raises the glass to his mouth again, throwing back the remnants of ice cubes into his mouth, and crunches down on them and the sound makes Julia's stomach churn.

"After -"

"Roger -"

A beat before he lunges for the bottle next to her, before she rises and sinks to his level, grabbing him by the shoulders, pushing him down and away from the bottle, and, "Christ, you're drunk."

He should go. She should help him.

He doesn't sob but his body's wracked with spasms, cries no one will hear and it shows on his face with the set of his jaw and Julia grabs his chin, shakes him, makes his eyes focus on her.

"Roger? Roger, come on. Roger, get up."

Roger lets out a breath, and Julia tenses in his place, eyes rolling back in her head. _Jesus, she did not ask for this._

"Laura's -"

His breath is strange against her cheek, equal parts hot and frozen and Julia stares hard, eyes narrowed, brows knit together, and Roger does not speak again before Julia kisses him - fiercely, hardness of the teeth behind his lips, her own pinched against the inside of her mouth until she breaks, tears from him.

Her own hands shake now, fingers in the fabric of his blazer, clinging tight to still herself, to keep from pulling away, from letting him go. For Roger means Laura means David means success, means things unknown, means oblivion in Julia's mind; things she cannot comprehend, but Roger must stay.

He says her name again, a gently rolled breathy whisper, followed by a halt and a silence and Julia follows his gaze over her shoulder, reaches behind her, grasps the bottle there, pulls it forward. Places it in front of Roger.

He drinks straight from it, suddenly gasping for air. He blinks, rapidly, and Julia stares and she can feel his head pounding and she says, smooth as the liquor down his throat, "What about her? Tell me."

"I miss her." The words are coaxed from him with her lips pressed to his, pressed to the corner of his mouth, to his jaw, his pulse point and he guides her back, hand pressed to her cheek as he kisses her, soft and fleeting and pulling back before she can take his lip between her teeth, bear down hard until he bleeds and the secrets and the memories are hers, until Laura is in her mind the way she's in his blood. "God, I miss her."

Roger is too gentle with her, Julia will note later, when it's a blur other than the touch of his hands, fingertips grazing on her stomach, dress tight and choking as it's bunched up under her arms. He's too gentle, too easy, and Julia does not let herself think the word _loving_ or scratch it onto her paper beyond the first two letters which are blotted out like the rest of the word from her mind.

Roger Collins does not love her, merely seeks to replicate that which he's lost.

Roger Collins acts out of fear.

Roger Collins chooses to forget rather than confront.

Roger Collins chooses to stare her in the eyes as she rips through the knot in his tie, fibers audibly moving against one another so quickly that there should be sparks (there are not). She does not return his gaze, backs down from the challenge, nearly holds him at arms length until her hands are on his collar and she's pulling him down, down to the floor, and the tile is cold against her back and it's so different to how he speaks, how he describes her, _Laura_ , with her trill of a name and the fire that she's lit even under the water.

It's cold and she's cold her skin is bare against it, spine against the rock and she looks him straight in the eye and pulls his shirt open and the buttons do not scatter, thread unable to hold against the force of Julia's hand. They loosen and the holes rip and his shirt hangs open, Julia's hands on his skin, nails long and clawing and tearing, fighting their way inside of him.

She will wonder, later, whether the marks are a bright red against his back, whether they sting against linen, whether he questions or whether he remembers. She will not say a word.

He winces. Grimaces. She follows the line of his mouth with her eyes, one corner to the other, leaning up to kiss him, to pull him down with her and he's hesitant against her mouth, only softness where there are her tongue and teeth.

"Tell me," she says again, because she needs to know and _people share_ , a growl from her throat and she scratches his chest, up to his collarbone, up to the fabric of his shirt and yanks on it, pulling him down as she sends him off balance and his hand slide out from the floor. He stays silent, but Julia did not and does not want words. She wants his mouth on her neck and the palms of his hands mapping across her, learns and gains her knowledge through his actions and his hesitations, hand shaky on her breast, she feels even through her sharp gasp and the flutter of her eyes and she focuses, focuses on the sweat of his palm and his breath (warm now, no more ice) and his hardness against her thigh and it's _vital for later_ , she tells herself. Tells herself as he freezes and she takes over, hands shifting under his weight to his belt to his trousers to the zipper and beneath cloth and elastic, hand grasping, drawing him out.

She'll note the way his hips jerk. The way his breathing stops completely and his eyes close and his teeth grit.

She smirks, smug, but it fades slowly as the breath Roger exhales when she knows ( _she knows_ ) what he thinks of, and Julia's hair is not long and dark and cold fury makes its way from the floor to her spine and she pulls on him.

He hisses. It's satisfying.

" _Shit,_ " and it's the first clear thing he's said in ages, it seems. Julia keeps a tight hold on him and watches the way his fingers curl against the floor. "I need -"

"Go on," Julia tells him, voice scratching, and on cue her hips arch upward. Roger's hand does not shake as he moves down her side, down her hips (she'll note it later), does not tremble as he swiftly and simply pushes the cloth between her thighs to the side (and it's awkward, the cotton pressed against her thigh and the elastic around her waist feeling close to tearing, she _will not_ note it later) as she arches upward and guides him inside and she presses to him as far as she can, knees bending around his waist, hand on his back clawing, the other making a path up his stomach and chest and neck and burying itself in his thin hair, guiding his face to hers as he pushes against her. She feels herself slide on the tile, releases her grip on him and grabs hold of her chair leg as she meets every movement of his hips, feels his hands on her sides, hisses at the scratch of his fingernails on her skin when they dig too deep. She holds the chair, hand on his back to steady herself, and lets him go, and Roger becomes a specimen in her eyes that grows hazier by the second. 

She's level, she tells herself, tells herself to pay attention and watch and _focus_ and she'll learn all he needs to in all the things he doesn't say, the way he lunges into her too deeply and makes her cry out and _then_ it's a blur, it really is, despite how Julia will try to remember later; it's a blur with her jaw slack and the scrape of the chair on the floor and Roger's gasps in her ear and her lips on his neck and, " _I need to know_ ," she says, " _I need you to tell me_ " and the last word is shaky because she _feels him_ and she cannot let herself attach but she must, she must cling with all that she has, and perhaps he doesn't care and perhaps she left New York but it's overwhelming never and all at once, and all at once she bucks and arches into him with a delayed yell. The world does not go black; her notepad falls from her chair to the floor, a reminder.

There are no gasps or moans or shouts when Roger comes, nothing but a strangled noise deep within his throat that the walls would be hard-pressed to record, to keep with the rest of their secrets (nor will it be kept with Julia's, in her notepad with red ink, along with the feeling of his stubble on her cheek or the way his pulse races or the bead of sweat down his back), but she knows it anyway, knows from the way his back goes rigid, shoulder blades tighten and he pulls himself closer into her and Julia wonders if he'll breathe again.

(This, she will write: _Roger hasn't been breathing since Laura fell overboard_ , in a messy scrawl when her notepad is soaked with liquor and later, when the ink has spread across the page, wonder her point.)

Roger's palms splay on the tile, warm suddenly, from the two of them, Julia notices. Something sticks in her throat. She averts her eyes.

"I - uh."

Roger pauses. His hand raises a fraction of an inch off of the floor and Julia does not have an estimation to measure how close it moves to her. There's a beat. "Right. _Right_ ," and he scrambles off of her, shirt wrinkled, jacket askew on his shoulders and he shakes himself to situate the clothes on his frame.

Julia is languid. Slow. Deliberate in her movements. She does not shake because she has control, is her thought process, until she does sit up, reaching behind herself to clasp her bra and pull down her dress and she nearly curls in on herself - not out of fear (she tells herself, because it was _information_ and _no, there's no one she misses_ ).

They're silent. She moves in on herself still. Her leg comes too close to the bottle and it spills, brown liquid spreading across the floor and, "Oh, _hell,_ " she snaps, scurrying upward.

Roger checks his trousers ("No stains, you're fine," Julia says, though due to the brandy or whatever else, it's unclear). He claps his hands together. Dusts them off. Manages a, "Well, I - uh -" before Julia does not look at him and he leaves.

The alcohol spreads over her notepad. It's difficult to write on wet paper, though she tries anyway, head swimming with the small portion left in the bottle.

The next week, Julia does not introduce herself when Roger brings home a woman ten years his junior. She giggles and has dark hair and it's big and outdated, backcombed with too many bobby pins. And it's dark. _Dark,_ and her eyes are warm.

Nobody comments when she cuts her hair, curls it at the ends, lets it frame her face and she looks younger, doesn't she, but it's foolish, Julia knows. But it's _practical_ , this way, and professional, and there's attention but it's not what she _wants_ and Roger hasn't breathed since Laura died (whatever that means). And some atmospheres are unbreathable.

Roger does not visit her office any longer. Does not speak to her about David, ignores his own son while there's a girl on his arm, younger and younger with every night and sometimes Julia hears them giggling from upstairs, loud squeaks. Perhaps this is what he needs, she tells herself. Perhaps he needs to _forget_ , needs a clean slate to start over because _they_ are not Laura and _they_ will not wind up a bloated and bloody mass on the rocks - so she does not warn them. And she's David's doctor. Not Roger's. _Charity's fine_ but charity has limits (if charity is writhing on a cold floor near midnight as a makeshift microscope). She has a schedule.

This is temporary (this is a lonely house on a hill where people lose their souls and lives and _wives_ ; they are not a family and Julia is not a part of it and she will not know their secrets).

There is no one Julia misses.

She buys another bottle of brandy. Two. Three. Keeps them in a cabinet in the corner of her apartment.

She does not let Roger see the key.


End file.
